The Sugar 'n Spice of Life

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Garage Door Adventures

A couple of days after Christmas, our garage door opener broke and now requires manual opening. (OF COURSE it happened over a holiday. . . These kind of things ALWAYS happen over a holiday!) The next night, after the girls were in bed, we decided to see if we could fix the dang thing, because, WOW that door is heavy. Brandon and I head out to the garage in our jammies, with a stool to take a look. Only problem is that Brandon had locked the door going from the house into the garage. . . A door that has NEVER been locked in the four plus years we have lived in this home. Ummmm. . . Oops!

Do we have a key with us? Nope. So Brandon takes a look at the garage door opener thingy, while I try my hand a picking a lock. And let me just tell you, it is not as easy as they make it look on tv. That doesn't seem to be producing any results and Brandon has already given up on trying to fix the garage door. Now we just want to go inside our nice warm house. Our only option is to go and ring the doorbell and hope one of our kids wakes up and has the sense to come see what is going on. So I put on the only coat available, which is about three sizes too small, Brandon lifts the garage door enough for me to get out and I head to the front door and start ringing the doorbell over and over again. Like a million times. And while I am ringing, Brandon is pounding on the garage door and yelling to the girls.

Does anyone hear us? Well, probably our neighbor (we are in a duplex), but no little girls hear the doorbell or the yelling or the pounding. And really I am starting to feel like we are going to have cops on our doorstep any moment, so I go back into the garage and get the stool so that I can get into the backyard (really tall fences!). Now it really looks like I am trying to break in. . . And did I mention it was freezing?

I get into the backyard, hoping against hope that one of our two windows is not locked and I can get in. With great fortune, the kitchen window is unlocked. With great agility, I manage to climb into the small window and climb over the kitchen sink without breaking my ankle and run to the door to let my now hoarse husband inside.

And we both just sat there wondering what on earth had just happened.

The next morning we asked the girls if they heard anything in the night and all we got were puzzled looks. Apparently we have heavy sleepers at our house.

It had now been about a week and a half of manually opening the garage every time we need to go anywhere and it is getting a little old. But just like all trials, there is always a silver lining. The girls really enjoy opening the garage all by themselves and insist upon helping every time it is opened. So my leaving to run errands or coming home from errands is now a family event. It is so fun to have these three cute smiling faces greet me whenever I come home! How funny that you can bond with your family over a broken garage door. (But I am still ready for it to be fixed!)

Saturday, December 25, 2010